Online shopping for me (Online shopping versus offline shopping)

Member Name: jesperado

Product:	Online shopping versus offline shopping
Date:	05/03/09 (60 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Online shopping is easy and convenient

Disadvantages: I can't assume that clothes will fit without trying them on

ONLINE SHOPPING:
One of the great benefits of online shopping is its convenience. You can do your shopping any time of the day or night from the comfort of your own home. You can browse a practically unlimited number of sites to find exactly what you are looking for. I've found that online shopping is particularly useful for finding inexpensive unusual gifts for friends and family that you just wouldn't find in a high street shop. Not only does this provide a great service for customers but it makes it easier for small businesses and independent artists to sell their products internationally with little personal cost. One of my favourite online shops is etsy.com where independent arts and crafts types can sell their wares easily. I have bought great gifts from this site and the artist I bought from sent me a personal note of thanks with my products and even included a little free gift. This makes the whole shopping experience much more pleasant than the standard 'Have a nice day' that you get in high street shops.

The downside of online shopping is that it can sometimes be unreliable and you have to be careful about which sites you shop with. Products can differ from what they are described as on the internet and it can be very difficult to get refunds from some companies. I don't buy clothes or shoes online as I am a bit of a strange shape and have to try clothes on before buying them. This is the area in which offline shopping is easier for me.

OFFLINE SHOPPING:
The best part of offline shopping is that you can see what you are getting. This is particularly useful for items that vary in size as you can see exactly what size you need. Also, offline shopping is often a social activity such as clothes shopping, an aspect not provided by online shopping. There is also the instant gratification that you can get from purchasing something and being able to have it there and then rather than waiting for it to be shipped from a warehouse which may take a number of weeks. This also means that you can buy things when you are in a hurry - something you can't do online.

One of the negative points about offline shopping is that the shopping experience itself may not be very pleasant. Take the January sales for example: you have to walk to the shops in the freezing cold, fight your way through crowds of women suffering from bargain-rage, try on a load of different outfits which you probably wouldn't buy if they were full price even if you could afford them, queue for hours only to be faced with a miserable teenage girl wearing too much makeup who is more interested in telling her friend how pissed she was last night than she is in serving you. When you have finally got your purchase home you realise that it is unlikely you will ever find an appropriate occasion to wear a neon-green sequined cocktail dress and that even if you did, there is a massive rip in it that you didn't notice because you were in too much of a hurry to get out of the stuffy, cramped, poorly-lit fitting room.

CONCLUSION:
Both have their advantages in certain situations but I prefer to shop online whenever possible as the poor standard of service in many high street shops makes it less than pleasant to shop offline.

Summary: I try to shop offline as little as possible but for clothes and shows it is necessary